What happens after death | Near death experiences

Your personal answer to this question depends on your beliefs. Are you expecting to arrive at the pearly gates of heaven? To be judged and absolved of your worldly sins? Are you slightly fearful of being cast in to fiery pits of hell?

Do you believe in reincarnation? Or perhaps you see it purely scientifically. Maybe you think what happens after death is nothing at all. Maybe you just stop?

For some, the question has already been answered. They believe they already know what happens after death because they’ve already experienced it.

Near death experiences are far from common but there are enough corresponding claims to make quite a compelling argument for their validity.

Medical, scientific and even ecclesiastic fields have all plowed huge resource into studying the near death experience (NDE) phenomenon and answering the question of what happens after death but there’s still no concrete proof.

British scientist Dr. Sam Parnia, author of “What Happens When You Die”, has spent the last 13 years studying near death experiences and is due to report on the findings of his latest study next year. Although he refuses to draw any early conclusion, in an interview with Skeptiko last year, he reported that his findings so far had indicated that near death experiences are “probably an illusion”. Your bodies way of coping with the huge amount of trauma.

Cher Chevalier, author of “The Hidden Secrets of a Modern Seer” and spiritual adviser of the past 20 years, disagrees.

Having experienced two NDEs before the age of ten, Chevalier believes “dying” and being brought back to life can open the mind to what waits beyond.

‘I became universally aware of what’s going on in what people call “heaven” and at the same time aware of what was going on here.’ She told wewomen.

‘Many people have described similar experiences - the disappearance of time, weightlessness, a realm of light, people speaking to you and angelic forms but at the same time, you can see and hear what’s going on here but it seems like toy town - you’re just an observer.’

Chevalier’s personal testimony corresponds with the findings of NDE expert Raymond Moody Ph.D, author of six books on the subject of life after death.

In 1975 Moody published the results of a study involving 150 people who’ve had near death experiences in his most famous book “Life after life”.

Moody stated that there are nine common experiences that make up a near death experience:

1. Hearing sounds such as buzzing
2. A feeling of tranquility and painlessness
3. Out-of-body experience (i.e. seeing yourself from above)
4. A feeling of moving through a tunnel
5. A feeling of ascending to a heavenly realm
6. Visions of people whether known or unknown
7. Meeting spiritual or God-like beings
8. Seeing your life “flash before your eyes”
9. Reluctance to return to life

Upon death there should be no consciousness owing to the flatline state of the brain but out of body experiences (OBEs) and a feeling of consciousness occurred in between 10 and 20 percent of patients brought back to life during Dr. Parnia’s study.